Book of Shadows (19 page)

My car weighs a ton, and it was hard to push it out of the driveway by myself, trying to steer and having to jump in and stomp on the brakes. I prayed some Halloween joyriders wouldn’t come screeching around my corner and cream my car. I closed my eyes again for a moment, thinking about my house, and I sensed people sleeping calmly, breathing deeply, unaware I was gone.

Finally my car was in the street, facing forward, and easier to push and control. I moved it as far as the Herndons’ house, with its new ramp for Mr. Herndon’s wheelchair. I got in and started the engine, thinking about the heated seats in Breezy. In my hands Das Boot felt like a living animal, purring to life, excited to be eating up the road beneath its wheels. We drove off into the darkness.

 

I parked under the huge willow oak in the field across from the cornfields. Robbie’s red Beetle was there, and so was Matt’s pickup. I had already seen Bree’s and Raven’s cars on the other side of the road. Feeling nervous, I got out of Das Boot and walked around to the trunk. I looked over my shoulders constantly, as if expecting Bree—or worse—to leap out at me from the dark velvet shadows. Quickly I unpacked the flowers, fruit, and candle I had brought and set off to the cornfields across the road.

Even at this late, late date I still felt some uncertainty, despite what I had told Bree and the others about being a witch. Everything in my heart was a go for launching myself into Wicca, but my mind was still busily gathering information. And my heart was more fragile than it might have been, bruised from my fight with Bree, from thinking about her with Cal, from hiding all of this from my parents. I was truly torn, and at the edge of the cornfield I almost dropped everything, turned around, and ran back to Das Boot.

Then I heard the music, Celtic music, floating airily toward me on the breeze, a caressing ribbon of sound seeming to promise peace and calm and welcome. I plunged into the tall feed corn that had been left to dry on the stalk. It didn’t occur to me to wonder where I was going or how I knew where to meet the others. I just went, and after brushing through the crackling golden sea, I found myself in a clearing, and the circle was waiting for me.

“Morgan!” Jenna said happily, holding out her hands to me. She was glowing, and her normally pretty face looked beautiful in the bright moonlight.

“Hi,” I said self-consciously. The nine of us stood there, looking at one another. To me it felt like we had gathered to begin a journey together, as if we were going to climb Everest. As if some of us might not make it all the way, but we were together at the beginning. Suddenly these people seemed like total strangers. Robbie was distant and newly handsome, not the math geek I had known for so long. Bree was a cold, lovely statue of the best friend I had once had. The others I had never been close to.What was I doing?

My leg muscles tensed, ready for flight, and then Cal walked over, and I was rooted to the spot.

Helplessly I smiled at Jenna and Robbie and Matt.

“Where do I put this?” I asked, holding up my stuff.

“On the altar,” Cal said, coming forward. His eyes met mine for a timeless, suspended second. “I’m glad you came.”

I gazed stupidly into his face for the split second it took me to remember about him and Bree, what she had told me, then I nodded curtly. “Where’s the altar?”

“This way. And happy Samhain, everyone,” Cal said, motioning for us to follow him through the corn. When the moonlight caught his glossy hair, it glowed, and he did indeed look like the pagan god of the forest I had read about. Do you belong to Bree now? I asked him silently.

After we left the cornfield, there was a broad mowed meadow sloping gently downhill. In the spring it would be covered with flowers. Now it was brown and soft underfoot. At the bottom of the meadow there was a tiny, icy stream, clear as rainwater, flowing swiftly over smooth gray and green rocks.We stepped across easily, Cal going first and helping everyone else. His hand felt warm and sure around mine.

Since I had arrived, I had been watching Cal and Bree out of the corner of my eye. The knowledge that they had gone to bed together was inescapable. And yet tonight he at least seemed the same. Somewhat cool and remote, seeming to pay no special attention to Bree. They didn’t look like a couple, like Jenna and Matt. Bree seemed high-strung, and even worse, she seemed more friendly toward Raven and Beth.

Past the stream the ground rose again and was swallowed into a line of thick trees. The trees were old, with gnarled bark, huge, spreading roots, and limbs as big around as barrels. Under the trees the darkness was almost impenetrable, yet I saw clearly and had no trouble picking my way through the underbrush.

Once we were through the trees, we found ourselves in an old cemetery.

I saw Robbie blinking. Raven and Beth shared amused smiles, and Jenna slipped her hand into Matt’s. Ethan snorted but stepped closer to Sharon when she looked unsure. I knew Bree was feeling confused only because I can decipher almost every nuance of her expression.

“This is an old Methodist graveyard,” Cal told us, resting his hand nonchalantly on a tall tombstone carved in the shape of a cross. “Graveyards are good places to celebrate Samhain. Tonight we honor those who have passed before us, and we acknowledge that one day we too shall pass into dust, only to be reborn.”

Cal turned and led the way down a row of tombstones to what looked like a large, raised sarcophagus. A huge old stone, lichened and stained with hundreds of years of rain and snow and wind, covered a raised granite box. Its carved letters were impossible to make out even in the bright moonlight.

“This is our altar for tonight,” Cal said, reaching down and opening a duffel bag. He handed a cloth to Sharon. “Could you spread this out, please?”

Sharon took it and spread it gingerly over the sarcophagus. Cal handed Ethan two large brass candlesticks, and Ethan set them on the altar.

“Jenna? Robbie? Can you arrange all the fruit and stuff?” Cal asked.

They gathered the offerings we had brought, and Jenna arranged it artistically on the altar in a cornucopia effect. There were apples, winter squashes, a pumpkin, and a bowl of nuts Bree had brought.

I took my flowers and Jenna’s and Sharon’s and put them into glass vases at either side of the altar. Beth gathered some boughs of dried autumn leaves and arranged them on the altar behind the food. Raven collected the other candles people had brought, including my black pillar, and fixed them to the sarcophagus by dripping wax and setting them on it. Matt lit all the candles in turn. There was hardly any wind here, and they barely flickered in the night.When the candles were lit, the place seemed more threatening somehow. I liked the idea of being able to hide in the darkness and felt exposed and vulnerable with the candlelight reflecting on my face.

“Now, everyone gather here in the middle,” Cal instructed. “Jenna? Raven? Would you like to draw our circle and purify it?”

I was jealous he had chosen them—probably we all were. Cal watched the two girls patiently, ready to help if necessary. But they worked carefully together, and soon the circle was cast and purified with water, air, fire, and earth.

Now that I was again with a circle, I felt exultant, expectant. The only thing that marred my good mood was Bree’s dark brooding and Raven’s air of superiority. I tried to ignore them, to focus only on magick, my magick, and to open myself to perceptions from any source beyond my five senses.

“Our circle is now cast,” Jenna said with awe in her voice. We all moved outward to stand just within its boundary. I made certain that I was between Matt and Robbie, two positive forces who wouldn’t distract or upset me.

Cal took a small bottle and uncorked it. Moving deasil, clockwise, around the circle, he dipped his finger into it and drew a pentacle, a five-pointed star within a circle, on each of our foreheads.

“What is this?” I asked, the only person to speak.

Cal smiled faintly. “Salt water.” He drew a pentacle on my forehead, his finger wet and gentle. Where he traced felt warm, as if it were glowing with power.

When he was finished, he took his place in the circle. “Tonight we’re here to form a new coven,” he said. “We gather to celebrate the Goddess and the God, to celebrate nature, to explore and create and worship magick, and to explore the magickal powers both within ourselves and without ourselves.”

In the next moment of silence, I heard myself say, “Blessed be,” and the others echoed it. Cal smiled.

“Anyone who wishes not to be of this coven, please break the circle now,” Cal said.

No one moved.

“Welcome,” Cal said. “Merry meet and blessed be. As we gather, so we’ll be. The ten of us have found our haven, here within the Cirrus coven.”

I thought, Cirrus? It was a nice name.

“You nine will now be inducted as novitiates, students of this coven,” Cal explained. “I’ll teach you what I know, then together we can seek out new teachers to take us further on our journey.”

The only time I’d heard the word
novitiate
used was in relation to priests or nuns. I shifted on my feet, feeling the dense, soft ground beneath me. Overhead, the moon was high and white, huge. Every once in a while we heard the sound of a car or firecrackers. But in this place, in our circle, there was a deep, abiding silence, broken only by animals’ night calls, the fluttering wings of bats and owls, the occasionally heard trickle of the stream.

Within myself I also felt a deep stillness. As if being put to bed one by one, my fears and uncertainties quieted. My senses were on full alert, and I felt incredibly alive. The candles, the breathing of the people with me, the scent of the flowers and fruit we had brought, all combined to create a wonderful, deep connection to Nature, the Goddess who is everywhere, all around us.

In the bowl of earth in the northern position, Cal lit an incense stick, and soon we were surrounded by the comforting scents of cinnamon and nutmeg. We joined hands. Unlike the other two times I had participated in a circle, tonight I was neither examining nor dreading what might happen. I kept my mind open.

Matt’s and Robbie’s hands were larger than mine; Matt’s smooth and slender, Robbie’s bulkier than Cal’s had been. My eyes flicked to Robbie’s face. It was smooth and unlined. I had done that, and within me I felt a recognition of and a pride in my own power.

Cal began the chant as we moved deasil around our circle.

I counted as we danced around the circle, and we chanted nine times.The more I studied Wicca, the more I realized that witches wove symbolism into just about everything: plants, numbers, days of the week, colors, times of the year, even fabrics, food, and flowers. Everything has a meaning. My job as a student would be to learn these symbols, to learn as much as I could about the nature surrounding me, and to weave myself into its pattern and magick.

As we chanted I thought about the end, when we would throw up our arms to release our energy. Once again I felt worried as I remembered the pain and nausea I had felt before. My facade of certainty began to crack, allowing in tendrils of fear. My power seemed scary.

Just as suddenly, as we whirled in our circle, singing the chant like a round, weaving our voices in and among one another, I realized that my
fear
would cause me pain if I didn’t let it go right now. I breathed deeply, feeling the chant leave my throat, surrounded by the coven in our circle, and I tried to banish fear, banish limitations.

Faces were blurred. I felt out of control. I banish fear! The words of our chant slurred until it was a beautiful rhythm of pure sound, rising and falling and swirling around me. I was having trouble breathing, and my face was hot and damp with sweat. I wanted to throw off my jacket, throw off my shoes. I had to stop. I had to banish fear.

With one last burst of sound our circle stopped, and we threw our arms skyward. I felt a rush of energy whirling around me. My hand grasped the air, and I pushed my fist against my chest, seizing some energy for myself. I banish fear, I thought dreamily, and then the night exploded all around me.

 

I was dancing in the atmosphere, surrounded by stars, seeing motes of energy whizzing past me like microscopic comets. I could see the entire universe; all at once, every particle, every smile, every fly, every grain of sand was revealed to me and was infinitely beautiful.

When I breathed in, I breathed in the very essence of life, and I breathed out white light. It was beautiful, more than beautiful, but I didn’t have the words to express it even to myself. I understood everything; I understood my place in the universe; I understood the path I had to follow.

Then I smiled and blinked and breathed out again, and I was standing in a darkened graveyard with nine high school friends, and tears were running down my face.

“Are you okay?” Robbie asked in concern, coming over to me.

At first it seemed he was speaking gibberish, but then I understood what he had said, and I nodded.

“It was so beautiful,” I said lamely, my voice breaking. I felt unbearably diminished after my vision. I reached my finger out to touch Robbie’s cheek. My finger left a warm pink line where it touched, and Robbie rubbed his cheek, looking confused.

The vases of flowers were on the altar, and I walked toward them, mesmerized by their beauty and also the overwhelming sadness of the flowers’ deaths. I touched one bud, and it opened beneath my hand, blooming in death as it hadn’t been allowed to in life. I heard Raven gasp and knew that Bree and Beth and Matt backed away from me then.